New Delhi, Nov 15: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s three-day visit to India from Sunday will be dominated by talks over a nuclear deal and new trade pacts in a bid warm a relationship that turned frosty when Ottawa cut off atomic trade after New Delhi’s 1974 nuclear test.
Accompanied by Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, International Trade Minister Stockwell Day and Parliamentary Secretary Deepak Obhrai, Harper lands in Mumbai on Sunday night from Singapore after attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) summit. He will meet top Indian industrialists at a luncheon at the Trident Hotel in Mumbai on Monday before leaving for New Delhi. Harper will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a range of bilateral issues including trade and investment and prospects of civil nuclear cooperation besides the global financial crisis as well as climate change.
The two sides are likely to talk about a Canada-India Free Trade Agreement or other incremental steps to lower trade barriers between them. A slew of agreements are expected to be signed, including a foreign investment protection agreement and on energy and farming cooperation in a bid to expand bilateral trade now languishing below $5 billion.
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